Spirit Anointed Prayer

Ephesians 1:17-22
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

Spirit Anointed Prayer

The apostle Paul prayed a spirit anointed prayer over the church of Ephesus and I am sure over all the churches who made up the body of Christ in that day. It is a prayer that we need to have memorized and needs to be our heart felt prayer to the Father for those in the body of Christ in this hour as well as our family and ourselves. It is a prayer that I often pray in behalf of the family because it represents such power and depth of what we need in this hour to come into the fullness of what Father is doing in us His people. This prayer is for the lifting of that veil of our natural mind, reasoning and religious thinking so that we might truly have a spirit of wisdom and revelation into what is God’s purpose and calling for us His saints. Paul is praying that we may get a true revelation of who we rightly are in Christ and the tremendous power that works on our behalf. He is saying that it is that same power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at the right hand of the Father in heavenly realms. Paul shares the revelation with us of where we are positionally in Christ Jesus in Colossians 3:1-3, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” Romans 8:11 reinforces this truth as it tells us, ” And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.”
There is an exceeding great power at work on our behalf, but it is so often veiled from our view because we are still seeing and comprehending our world after a natural mindset. We don’t understand why God didn’t do this when we prayed and why that didn’t happen and why we seem so powerless at times. Not all things are yet made manifest in this realm. As a result our faith is quenched and we become discouraged. Know that even the early church was subject to great persecution and deliverance from the evil that was perpetrated against them was not always stopped. Many lost their livelihood, their possession, their families and their very own lives also. Where was God? Christ was in the midst of their suffering and persecution. He was still mighty in them and being glorified through them because even their very death and persecution fueled the growth of the church in that day. It is not this earthly life that is our most valuable possession. It is our spiritual life and the hope we have in Christ Jesus. All that we possess in this world we may lose, including our own lives, but the important thing is that we have a revelation of the “Pearl of great price” that we are willing to sell all that we have that we may obtain it. That is the Christ in You, your hope of glory!
God is still on the throne. Christ is still at His right Hand and we are still seated there in Him “far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.” All things are coming under His feet even as He has declared it and we are the feet of Jesus. We are the overcomers through which His life and power is destined to triumph.
Listen to what is declared in these last two verses. It is so powerful that is it hard for us to truly fathom. “22And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” Who does the Word declare is the fullness of Him who fills every thing in every way? You are and we are as the body of Christ. We are the fullness of Him! Can you comprehend that? That is hard for me to wrap my mind around. That is why we so need the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. We have to know who we are so that we know what our identity is. It is Christ Jesus. His name rest upon us and we are the body of His expression. The same power that raised Christ from the dead abides and is activated in you. We can not let the facade of the outward things cloud our spiritual vision and insight. The Lord gave Sharon a quote once that goes to the effect that, “Today’s problems often cloud the sunshine of tomorrows victories.” Even when the clouds come to obscure the light, the sun never fails to shine and so it is with Christ, His Word and His promises. He shall do and accomplish all that He has declared He would and we are the agents of that fulfillment. Stand strong and stand encouraged, “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. (1 John 4:4).

Blessings,
#kent

Advertisement

Heart Issues

Heart Issues

Proverbs 4:23
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it [are] the issues of life.

What are your heart issues today? What is the source and the outflow of what is in your heart? Our heart deals with the motivation of our soul. Out of that motivation of our being is the direction and the resulting fruit of what our life will produce. The heart is a precious thing to God. It contains the attitudes and desires for the things of life or the things of death. Most of us through the course of our lives may be very distraught with ourselves because we see our lives going in directions that we know are destructive, contrary to the will of God and what is best for us. Inwardly, if we are the Lord’s, there is a grieving of the Spirit of God within us. There is an inward crying out of our spirit not to continue in those ways. Our heart is divided between flesh and spirit. There is war in the heavenlies of our soul. Sin and darkness battle for possession of our heart, but you have made a choice. At some point in your life you opened up your heart and asked Christ in. You confessed your sin; did you also renounce the works of darkness? Sometimes when we are saying yes to the Lord, we still aren’t saying “no” to the flesh. We wonder why we find ourselves with a heart for Jesus, but also a strong compulsion for sin. Have we been diligent to guard our heart or have we left open doors for sin and darkness to come in? This is a hard area, because it is often hard to see ourselves and really judge our motives without our mind and flesh trying to justify it’s position.
If you are on the Lord’s side and you really want Him to be Lord of your life, will and emotions then you have to be willing to allow Him to have complete Lordship. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Without the Holy Spirit’s supervision and our permission to really allow Him to have His way, even as Christians, our hearts can become very perverse. Usually it comes about subtly as we have opened the door perhaps in what we thought were innocent ways. One day we start to become painfully aware that things are out of control and we don’t seem to have the strength and will power to stop them. The issues of our heart are producing sin and death, much to the dismay of our inner man, who is standing there, inwardly crying out, but weak and helpless. We cry out to God, but we still find ourselves overpowered by the strongholds of sin that has overtaken us.
Look around your life. Have you shut the doors and windows of your soul to the damning influences that have brought this corruption or are they still wide open for these demons to walk in and out of? The first step to guarding our heart is to close all the door of our senses, sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste to the influences that have taken over and are defeating us. It is in guarding and renouncing all impure thoughts and desires of our mind. When these sources of entrance are cut off you will have made a major first step. Be aware that you will not be able to do this in your own strength. You must ask the Holy Spirit’s help to free you from the bondage of your heart. We must take the Word of God as our sword to speak by faith what the mind and will of God is in our circumstance and weakness. He, His Word, is our authority over the strongholds of darkness. Ask Him to show you every in-road satan has in your life and cut it off. Your flesh will cry out and protest for all it is worth because it doesn’t want to die. It will ultimately relinquish anything if it can maintain some small place in your heart. Beware of the weed that is cut off at the surface, but whose root remains for it will spring forth to live again another day. Ask the Holy Spirit to continually show you every area that sin can gain entrance and get rid of it.
If you are struggling with heart issues, then you need help in the battle. Surround yourself with strong and godly people that can pray for you and help you be accountable in these areas of weakness. James 5:16 tells us, “Confess [your] faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” Leviticus 26:8 tells us, ” And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.” This is a spiritual principle of warfare that we are much stronger when we are not trying to stand alone.
The third thing is that it is essential to give these unredeemed places in our hearts back to the Lord. Begin to totally saturate and baptize and immerse your heart back into Christ. Let Him come in and fill up the desolate and waste place that vanity and sin have left in their wake. Many times we turn to sin because we are not satisfying the spiritual longing of our heart. Pursue spiritual things and let the Lord fill your heart with His desires. Let Him move you out of that stronghold of sin, turn it around and let it become a weapon against the enemy.
God loves you with an everlasting love. He doesn’t love you more when you are good and less when you are bad. He loves you always. God is restoring His people in this hour. He is calling us out of the throes of worldliness and ungodliness and calling us back to be a separated people, a sanctified people for His possession and glory. God is interested in our future, not our past. He has provided His blood to cover our past blunders and sins, but to continue in them is to crucify the Son of God afresh. We are not the world’s toilet bowl. We are the sanctified, redeemed and holy consecrated vessels of the Lord. We are His dispensers of spiritual life, mercy, justice, loving kindness and salvation. We must get our hearts right with the Lord and then guard them with all diligence for out them are the issues of life, His life.

blessings,
#kent